Parent & High School Basketball Advice

[rnstone61]

This is my first post to this forum so bear with me please. I am a parent of a High School girl in Georgia and am trying to follow around to all of her games and get quality shots of their team for the end of the year banquet. I have gone thru about every scenario you can think of and am at a point now where I can use some advice from some experts.

My Equipment: Canon Mark IIN; Flash - 580 EX;Canon 24-70 2.8L; Canon 70-200 2.8 USM; Canon 135 2.0L; Canon 85 1.8; Canon 50 1.8.

1st Scenario - No High School gyms have strobes or good lighting and every one is different. What I did for a long time was to use Existing Light and use the 85 at 1.8 and just hang around under the basket; ISO was at 1600 & shot on TV Mode and used a SS of 400-500. Photos always looked soft and not sharp as some of the excellent posts I have seen on here. Also it limited me to being pretty close on the base lines to get good shots.

2nd Scenario - For while, I then Used Existing Light and the 70-200 and put SS at 320 @ ISO 1600 and just let the picture be underexposed and tried to fix in Photoshop. Still not the quality that is acceptable and actually ended up being worse than above.

3rd Scenario- Used the 135L at 2.0 at ISO 1600 and SS of 400-500. Really limited how close or not I could get to the players and the pictures were really not that sharp.

Current Scenario - Here is what I tried last night. Used the 580 EX and pointed it straight up to the ceiling (set it to E-TTL). Used the 70-200 2.8 lens all night. Set the Mark IIN on M(Manual) and set shutter to 250 (max for flash sync) and then apperture to 4 - 5.6. Left ISO at 1600. The quality of pictures and the difference was amazing. Still not 100% but the sharpness was much much improved and the color was awesome. NOTE: I also shot in Raw and used Noice Ninja and CS4 post processing to spiff up a little bit. I also use CF 17 set to Single Focus Point and use the back button for focusing.

Question/Issues:
1. I could not figure out how to get the flash to keep up in A1 Servo High Speed Shooting. I had fresh Energizer lithiums in it but the first shot would be great and the next would be dark. I ended up just going to Single Shot which limited the pictures I could shoot and the timing of them. What do I need to do?
2. Am I using the right setup/settings in the Current Scenario above? Any recommendations for changes?
3. Some pictures were fantastic and some were blurry (motion blur). Not sure if this was my error in moving or the flash not firing. Any advice here?
4. Can you use A1 Servo and High Speed Continuous Shooting with a flash? How?
5.Most of my pictures are not blurring the background like I really want. If I go down to 2.8 will it affect the sharpness of my images or make me loose the flash stopping the action?

I would appreciate any help you could give me. This is a great forum with lots of good advice and tips that I am definitely putting to use. I have uploaded 2 example shots - hopefully they are attached to this.

Thanks. Rodney

[Gatorboy]

When using flash, you need to be selective of your shots, for you aren't going to be able to burst away.

If you are going without flash, shoot in MANUAL mode, not Tv or Av for the light is consistent. Don't be afraid to crank up the ISO to 3200. Then use your 85 at f/1.8 and adjust your shutter speed until you nail the exposure.

[jwboudreau]

I shoot for a local weekly Newspaper and have a very similar set-up (30D and 20D) instead of Mark IIN (I'm jealous). Here is what I started shooting last year with good results

ISO: 1600
Manual: ss320 F2.8
Flash on Manual, test your settings for best light, 1/2,1/3 etc.
Flash on High Speed Sync, straight on at action

I got good results with these settings w/ both my 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8

The flash did not recycle fast enough sometimes but on Manual, usually half power, it recycled faster and lit more of my shots. Going to start shooting like this again very soon.

[Merciez]

This is my first post to this forum so bear with me please. I am a parent of a High School girl in Georgia and am trying to follow around to all of her games and get quality shots of their team for the end of the year banquet.

Welcome to the forum and good for you for following your daughter to different schools to get the quality shots.


1. I could not figure out how to get the flash to keep up in A1 Servo High Speed Shooting. I had fresh Energizer lithiums in it but the first shot would be great and the next would be dark. I ended up just going to Single Shot which limited the pictures I could shoot and the timing of them. What do I need to do?

You will have a very hard time having the flash keep up in muli-shot mode. You can have an external battery pack which will help in recharging the flash to allow for faster recycle times. The problem with firing the flash in burst mode is the potential to over heat the flash which can very easily result in a failure of the flash. I would recommend stayinig in one shot mode when using the flash. You will have fewer photographs, but the shots you do take will probably be better images overall since you will more likely be more selective with your shots and timing.

2. Am I using the right setup/settings in the Current Scenario above? Any recommendations for changes?

I would continue to use the flash (bouncing offf the ceiling) assuming the ceiling is low enough and will support bouncing the flash. You might see some ceilings that are not white and are not conducive to bouncing the flash. The two biggest benefits of using the flash are the action freezing and the colors look a lot better. Use AI-Servo for focusing and single shot when using the flash. Using the flash in ETTL mode is fine assuming the flash is not fooled by the color of the uniforms. If you are getting good exposures in ETTL, I would suggest staying in ETTL.

3. Some pictures were fantastic and some were blurry (motion blur). Not sure if this was my error in moving or the flash not firing. Any advice here?

This can be caused by multiple reasons and it is hard to tell without seeing some examples. If the flash did not fire and you had a SS of 1/250, you are most likely getting motion blur. If the flash did fire, you are either seeing ghosting (caused by not having the flash exposure high enough above the ambient exposure) or you simple were moving the camera when the shot was taken.

4. Can you use A1 Servo and High Speed Continuous Shooting with a flash? How?
You can, but not recommended. I would suggest having a second set of batteries available to install at half-time. This will help with the recycle time for the last two quarters.

5.Most of my pictures are not blurring the background like I really want. If I go down to 2.8 will it affect the sharpness of my images or make me loose the flash stopping the action?
This is were it gets a little tricky. The flash will be able to freeze the action if the flash exposure is at least two stops of light above the ambient exposure. You can open up the aperature to f2.8 to reduce the depth of field and get the nice bokeh, but you are increasing the ambient exposure as a result. The flash will fire at a lower power since it is seeing higher ambient light levels. You will then have a greater potential for ghosting in the images since your flash exposure may no longer be at least 2 stops above the ambient exposre.

The solution would be to reduce your iso setting the same amount you reduce your aperature setting. By reducing the ISO, you are offsetting the effect of the aperature change, the result will be the flash firing at the same power level as before. Adust your aperature settng to get the blurry background, just realize you are reducing your DOF and running the chance of gettnig soft shots. This will be a trial and error process.

Hopefully, most of the gyms you play will have low white ceilings to make bouncing the flash possible.

[lauderdalems]

Leave the flash off and shoot 3200ISO and 2.8 with the 70-200 or 2.0 with the 85. I'm always shooting in a dark gym. My only luck was the last women's game was an afternoon game and I actually had some sunlight filtering in and manage to shoot some at 1600ISO.

My samples are available if you are interested. (BTW: I only have a 40D)

http://gamedayphotos.uwa.edu/

[TopGear1Ds]

(BTW: I only have a 40D)
I wouldn't call it 'only' a 40D. At 3200 the 40D will probably look a little better than a 1D mkII

[40Dude6aedyk]

Check your manual, there is a menu item under flash controls to allow the flash to fire even it is not recharged fully. (I am at work, so can't look up the setting for you.) You can also set the flash power to manual say at 1/2 and see what happens. I have found that I can get about 6 flashes in a row with this on a 580EX II (spray and pray).

A recent shoot of mine used 85 mm f/2.2 ISO 1100 with bounced flash. Not as sharp as what you have shown. I will probably get a second flash to use off-camera to get more light.

When you get something that you like, please let us know!